New scientific insights on socio-demographic family history in Flanders through extensive human Y-chromosomal DNA kinship research

The male-specific Y-chromosome (chrY) is an interesting kinship tool as 95% lacks recombination with chrX, providing a conserved inheritance from father to son. The only genetic chrY variation is caused by DNA modifications during meiosis. As surnames are paternally co-inherited with chrY, an equal Y-profile for every namesake is suggested. With this project, we aim to gain new scientific insights into socio-demographic family history in Flanders through human chrY variation. By comparing chrY to surnames on micro-geographical scale, various genetic-genealogical and population-genetic analyzes will be realized. More perceptions will be gathered concerning surname origins and founders, and genetic or environmental influences on chrY dominance and offspring gender. Moreover, our unique massive parallel sequencing ‘CSYseq’ will be used to target a lot of Y-markers with variable mutation rates to expand chrY variance knowledge to further improve forensic familial searching with chrY.

Keywords:Y-chromosome, Surnames, Genetic-genealogy, Socio-demography, Massive parallel sequencing

Disciplines:Population, ecological and evolutionary genetics, Genetics, Forensic biology